The Logic of Life: Hegel s Philosophical Defense of Teleological Explanation of Living Beings

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1 Claremont Colleges Claremont CMC Faculty Publications and Research CMC Faculty Scholarship The Logic of Life: Hegel s Philosophical Defense of Teleological Explanation of Living Beings James Kreines Claremont McKenna College Recommended Citation Kreines, James. "The Logic of Life: Hegel s Philosophical Defense of Teleological Explanation of Living Beings." The Cambridge Companion to Hegel and Nineteenth-Century Philosophy. Ed. Frederick C. Beiser. New York: Cambridge University Press, This Book Chapter is brought to you for free and open access by the CMC Faculty Scholarship at Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in CMC Faculty Publications and Research by an authorized administrator of Claremont. For more information, please contact scholarship@cuc.claremont.edu.

2 Au: James on Table of Contents? Which do you prefer? james kreines 13 The Logic of Life: Hegel s Philosophical Defense of Teleological Explanation of Living Beings Hegel accords great philosophical importance to Kant s discussions of teleology and biology in the Critique of the Power of Judgment, andyet also disagrees with Kant s central conclusions there. 1 More specifically, Kant argues for a generally skeptical view of teleological explanation 1 In citing works, the following abbreviations have been used: HEGEL: Most writings are contained in the Werke in zwanzig Bände, ed. by E. Moldenhauer und K. Michel, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, The first references to these writings are by volume: page in that edition. The exception is that I cite the Encyclopedia by number, with A indicating Anmerkung and Z indicating the Zusatz; where helpful I also add after a / a citation from Werke. I indicate individual works using the abbreviations below. Citations from works not contained in the above edition are from the editions listed below. And I add, after a /, page references to the translations listed below: Au: please add location. Au: correct or translated/trans.) Au: change to English ed. by and trans. by here and two refs. later? Au: correct abbrev. Au:B.D. Sanderson? EL: Encyclopaedia Logic, trans. by T. F. Geraets, H. S. Harris, and W. A. Suchting (Hackett Publishing Co., 1991). PhG: Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. by by A.V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977). PN: Hegel s Philosophy of Nature, trans. by W. Wallace and A. V. Miller (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970). PP: The Philosophical Propaedeutic, ed. by M. George and A. Vincent and trans. by A. V. Miller (Oxford: Blackwell; 1986). VGP: Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 3 vols., trans. by E. S. Haldane and F. H. Simson (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995). VL: Vorlesungen über die Logik. Berlin Transcribed by Karl Hegel, ed. by U. Rameil and H.-Chr. Lucas, (Hamburg: Meiner, 2001). VN: Vorlesung über Naturphilosophie 1821/22. Nachschr. von Boris yon Uexküll, hrsg. vyon Giles Marasse und Thomas Posch (Wien: Lang, 2002). VPA: Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, 3 vols., trans. by T. M. Knox, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975). VPN: Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Natur: Berlin 1819/20, nachgeschr. Von Johann Rudolf Ringier, hhrsg. von Martin Bondeli und Hoo Nam Seelmann (Hamburg: Meiner, 2002). VPR: Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, 3 vols., trans. by Rev. E. B. Speirs, B. D. and J. Burdon Sanderson. (New York: Humanities Press, Inc., 1974.) WL: Hegel s Science of Logic, trans. by A. V. Miller (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1969). 344

3 The Logic of Life 345 of living beings; Hegel responds that Kant should instead defend such explanation and that the defense of teleology should have led Kant to different conclusions throughout his theoretical philosophy. To be sure, Kant s view is not entirely skeptical. Kant actually argues that we necessarily conceive of living beings in irreducibly teleological terms. But we cannot know that living beings themselves truly satisfy the implications of teleological judgment. We cannot know whether teleology truly explains anything in biological cases. And this skepticism requires Kant to carefully limit his positive claims about teleology: it is subjectively necessary we conceive of living beings in teleological terms, and this conception is legitimate when employed not as an explanation but as a heuristic aid for scientific inquiry. 2 Hegel s response in his Science of Logic and Encyclopedia is by no means entirely critical. 3 Hegel frequently praises a distinction central to Kant s analysis of teleology the distinction between external and inner purposiveness [innere Zweckmäßigkeit]. On the one hand, there is the concept of a complex system, like a pocket watch with many parts, which satisfies the implications of teleological judgment in virtue of the work of a separate or external intelligent designer. Here the parts of the system are means to the external ends or purposes [Zwecke] of a designer (e.g., reliable indication of the time). On the other hand, we can conceive of another way in which a system might satisfy the implications of teleological judgment not in virtue of external design but in virtue of its own inner nature. Here the parts would be means to a system s own inner ends or purposes. Kant argues that the latter concept of inner purposiveness is logically consistent and meaningful. And that it is understandable and heuristically useful for us to conceive of real living beings in this way. Hegel finds Kant s analysis here to be of great philosophical importance for philosophy generally and not Au: closing year available for all volumes printed? NO; please leave as is. KANT: All references to Kant s writings are given by volume and page number of the Akademie edition of Kant s Gesammelte Schriften (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1902 ). KU: Critique of the Power of Judgment, trans. by P. Guyer and E. Mathews (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000). German text from volume 5 of Gesammelte Schriften for the published version of the book, and from volume 20 for the first introduction. 2 For example, Kant aims to justify a heuristic principle for researching the particular laws of nature, even granted that we would want to make no use of it for explaining nature itself (KU, 5:410). Kant consistently denies that he is justifying teleological explanation; see also KU, 5:360 and KU, 5: My main focus is the argument of the Life section in both the book version of the Wissenschaft der Logik (WL) and the first part of Hegel s Encyclopedia (EL). I will also draw from other texts, mostly limiting myself to those written after the (1807) Phenomenology of Spirit.

4 346 james kreines just for philosophical issues concerning life. In Hegel s terms, with this concept of inner purposiveness, Kant has resuscitated the idea in general and especially the idea of life. 4 And Hegel will rarely pass up the chance to dismiss and even ridicule the idea of conceiving living beings or nature in terms of external purposiveness, as in an artifact; Hegel sees such claims as a distraction from the important philosophical issues, and an invitation to popular superstitions or to triviality, as in the suggestion that God has provided cork-trees for bottle stoppers. 5 But Hegel draws on Kant s concepts to argue against Kant s own skeptical insistence that there are philosophical barriers blocking our knowledge of natural teleology: Hegel argues that living beings do manifest true internal purposiveness, that their structure and development is explicable in teleological terms, and that we can have objective knowledge of this natural teleology and of its broader metaphysical implications. So Kant should not, Hegel says, have been satisfied in investigating whether the application of teleology to nature provides mere maxims of a subjective cognition. Speaking of the end relation, Hegel says, on the contrary, it is the absolute truth that judges objectively and determines external objectivity absolutely (WL, 6:444/739). It is worth noting that subsequent developments in the biological sciences have not resolved the status of teleology in biology. To be sure, it has sometimes been popular to hold that teleological language in modern biology can be only a façon de parler, perhaps best replaced by a substitute like teleonomy. But those not attending to philosophy of biology of the last thirty years or so might not realize that it is now also popular, perhaps more so, to defend teleology. There are skeptics who see these defenses as misunderstanding natural selection, or as covertly replacing rather than defending teleology. But this is to say that debate continues. 6 Some readers may well side with the skeptics, thinking that 4 EL, 204A; see also EL, 55A and WL, 4:440 1/ PN, 245Z, PN, 9:14/6. The cork example is a joke borrowed from Goethe and Schiller s Xenia. Hegel returns to the example frequently: EL, 205Zu; VPR, 17:520; VGP, 20:23. On superstition and external purposiveness see VGP, 20:88/3: L. Wright s, Teleological Explanations: An Etiological Analysis of Goals and Functions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976) and R.G.Millikan slanguage, Thought and other Biological Categories (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993), have led to many defenses of teleology within the philosophy of biology. See, for example, K. Neander s, The Teleological Notion of Function, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 69 (1991), p Neander comments: today it is generally accepted that the biological notion of a proper function is both teleological and scientifically respectable. And see J. Lennox s short summary of the debate from Plato and Aristotle, through Darwin, and from behaviorism to current defenses of teleology, Teleology, in Keywords in Evolutionary Biology, ed. by Evelyn Fox Keller and Elisabeth Lloyd (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992). For criticism of the new

5 The Logic of Life 347 any defense of teleology must be somehow scientifically obsolete. It would be fair enough to seek to defend that claim in the contemporary debate, where it would be controversial. But we must not simplyassume this claim and then view Hegel through that lens. If we did that, then we will seek to understand him as defending teleology specifically by providing alternatives to contemporary science perhaps an alternative to the theory of natural selection, or a proposed explanation of the origin of all life. To be sure, by looking in the right places one can find claims in Hegel which conflict with scientific theories we now know to be true. But we must not make assumptions about what role, if any, these claims play in Hegel s argument against Kant in defense of natural teleology. Instead of looking through the lens of contemporary biology and assumptions about its philosophical implications, we should simply seek to understand Kant and Hegel s philosophical arguments in their own terms. We can then try to understand whether and how those arguments though scientifically uninformed by our standards might really bear on the underlying philosophical issues of continuing importance and interest. That, in any case, is what I seek to do here. I think that both Kant and Hegel provide compelling arguments whose real philosophical force is easy to miss. So I do not aim here to decide the issue between them, but to uncover and explain the arguments. I begin with a brief look at Kant s case for his skeptical conclusions, and then consider at greater length Hegel s response and the conclusions it aims to support. I close with a brief discussion of the importance of this topic within Hegel s broader metaphysics. i. kant s analysis To begin, we must distinguish two of the endeavors Kant pursues in the Critique of the Power of Judgment (hereafter KU). Kant seeks to analyze the concept of a complex system which would satisfy the implications of teleological judgment by nature or in virtue of inner purposiveness, rather than in virtue of the work of an external designer. He seeks to analyze the concept of a Naturzweck [natural end or purpose]. Another goal of Kant s is to determine what sorts of reasons we might have, defenses of teleology, see Robert Cummins, Functional Analysis, Journal of Philosophy, 72 (1975), pp and Neo-teleology in Functions: New Essays on the Philosophy of Psychology and Biology, ed.byr.cummins,m.perlman,and A. R. Ariew (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp and Elliot Sober, Natural Selection and Distributive Explanation: A Reply to Neander, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 46 (1995), pp

6 348 james kreines if any, to conceive of actual living beings as teleological systems by nature. 7 Kant s analysis consists of two requirements governing the relations, in a complex system, between the parts and the whole. The first condition specifies the conditions under which a complex system will satisfy the implications of teleological judgment, or will be a Zweck [end or purpose]. And Kant argues that this will be so only where the parts are means to an overall end realized in the whole. To begin with, this requires that the parts and their organization are such that all this jointly benefits the whole. But it is crucial that mere benefit is not sufficient for teleology. For something might have beneficial consequences for something else merely by coincidence. 8 So Kant s first requirement requires that the presence of jointly beneficial parts is not merely coincidental; such parts must be present because of the way in which they are beneficial in relation to an overall end or purpose realized in the whole. In Kant s terms, for a thing as a natural purpose [Naturzweck] itisrequisite, first, that its parts (as far as their existence and their form are concerned) are possible only through their relation to the whole (KU, 5:373). When it comes to actual living beings, the question raised by the first requirement is not do the parts and their organization contribute in complex ways to the survival of the whole? It is empirically obvious that they do. But the important question concerns explanation, namely: Are such beneficial parts present in a living being specifically for the sake of this benefit, or because of an end or Zweck? When it comes to artifacts, we have an obvious reason to answer in the affirmative. For example, are the parts of a watch present specifically because of purposes, or because of the way each contributes to the 7 P. McLaughlin carefully distinguishes Kant s two endeavors here. See his Kant s Critique of Teleology in Biological Explanation (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990), pp See also A. Wood, Kant s Ethical Thought (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p I take this to rule out the idea that Naturzweck is Kant s expression for biological organisms. See C. Zumbach, The Transcendent Science. Kant s Conception of Biological Methodology (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1984), p. 19; J. D. MacFarland, Kant s Concept of Teleology (Edinburg: Edinburg University Press, 1970), p. 102; and W. devries, The Dialectic of Teleology, Philosophical Topics, 19 (1991), pp We must distinguish the concept of a Naturzweck from the empirical concepts such of living being and organism in order to make sense of Kant s denial of the possibility of knowledge that living beings are Naturzwecke. 8 To take Kant s example, a receding sea might benefit a forest growing on the shore; this need not mean that the sea recedes for the sake of the forest, or because of any benefit or any end or purpose at all. Note Kant s own emphasis of the because (darum and weil) in discussing this issue. In Kant s terms, such relative purposiveness justifies no absolute teleological judgments (KU, 5:369).

7 The Logic of Life 349 further end of the whole reliably indicating the time? Yes; a designer has selected each part for that very reason. In virtue of the designer s work, such cases satisfy the explanatory implications of teleological judgment the structure of the whole, and how that structure came about, can be explained by ends or purposes. Kant wants to argue that there is, at least in principle, room for another kind of in virtue of here, another way in which the explanatory implications could be satisfied. There is room for a meaningful concept of a system that is teleological (is a Zweck or end or purpose) not in virtue of external design but by nature, or in virtue of inner purposiveness. 9 This is the concept of a Naturzweck. To complete his analysis of this concept, Kant needs a second requirement which will exclude the merely external purposiveness of artifacts, leaving only inner purposiveness. The intuition behind Kant s strategy is clear enough: the parts of artifacts are means to an end only insofar as the overall structure or organization has been imposed; a Naturzweck, by contrast, would have to self-organizing (KU, 5:374). Kant seeks to formulate this as a requirement, like the first, governing part whole relations. Framed in this way, it would have to require that the structure or organization of the whole is determined not by something else but by the parts themselves. But for a part to contribute to the determination of the structure would be to contribute toward determining what other kinds of parts are present and their arrangement. So for a Naturzweck, it is required second, that its parts be combined into a whole by being reciprocally the cause and effect of their form (KU, 5:373). ii. natural teleology is problematic With respect to this concept of a Naturzweck, Kant seeks to argue for a complex and balanced conclusion: On the one hand, the concept is logically consistent, and conceiving living beings in these terms is heuristically useful. On the other hand, we can never know that anything real actually satisfies that concept. Kant will argue against the possibility of knowledge by applying what we now often call the backwards causation problem to his own requirement that the existence and form of the parts of a teleological system 9 Clearly, then, Kant does not use teleological notions for example, the term Zweck, sometimes translated as purpose so that they are supposed merely by definition to require external intelligent design. He is interested neither in ordinary usage nor in stipulating here but in the philosophical question of whether parts can be present for the sake of awhole,orbecause of an end, without this being due to external intelligent design.

8 350 james kreines must depend on their relation to the whole. 10 A part of a system can have beneficial consequences for the whole only once it is already present along with the other parts. So these beneficial consequences cannot have any influence over the process, entirely prior in time, by which the part originally came to be present this would be akin to something reaching back in time and causing its own cause. In Kant s terms, it is entirely contrary to the nature of physical-mechanical causes that the whole should be the cause of the possibility of the causality of the parts (KU, 20:236). The only exception would be if the system originates in a prior concept of the whole a concept dictating the ways in which each part is to contribute along with the others. So Kant s first condition the parts depend on their relations to the whole can only be met where there is a concept or an idea that must determine a priori everything that is to be contained in it (KU, 5:373). Interpreters of both Kant and Hegel sometimes miss the strength of Kant s argument here. Some see Kant as worried about how an end or telos could be an efficient cause, and reply that we should instead entirely distinguish teleology from explanation in terms of efficient causes, so that we can then say that both legitimately and independently explain, perhaps insofar as each addresses distinct explanatory interests or practices of our own. 11 As far as I can see, this line of thought does not address the considerations introduced by Kant. True, different kinds of explanation might explain in context of different interests or practices. 10 See also Kant s consideration of the house example: in the order of real causes, an end or purpose (Zweck) cannot precede and thereby influence its own causes, so it can do so only as ideal, or as first represented (KU, 5:372). MacFarland, Kant s Concept of Teleology, stresses the backwards causation problem (1970, p. 106), but the argument is stronger than he recognizes there. See also R. Zuckert, Purposiveness Time and Unity: A Reading of the Critique of Judgment (Chicago: Ph.D. dissertation, 2000), ch. 2 and Guyer, Organisms and the Unity of Science, in Kant and the Sciences, ed. by Eric Watkins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p The first steps of this response are suggested in devries s account of Hegel s response to Kant: The problem with Kant s model on which teleology requires prior representation of a concept is that it reduces final causation to the form of efficient causation. See his Dialectic of Teleology, p. 56. By contrast, the ancients saw no problem about the status of teleological judgments or explanations. Final causes were one of the four Aristotelian becauses, so questions about teleology were always in order in the Aristotelian system (p. 52) and Hegel follows them (p. 54). I argue that Kant s argument is not so easily dismissed, so that Hegel requires (and seeks in Aristotle) a line of argument which addresses Kant s argument more directly. Contrast also Zumbach s claim that Kant can be read as defending a kind of teleological explanation, and that Kant does not put the point this way because of his narrow conceptions of causality and explanation. See his Transcendent Science, pp , 123.

9 The Logic of Life 351 On the face of it, however, explanation is also constrained by what is really going on in the world. If X plays no role in determining or influencing Y, then no appeal to X can legitimately explain Y, no matter what your interests and practices might be. For example, if the movements of the stars which make up the constellation Sagittarius have no real influence on my current mood, then it is simply a mistake for anyone to explain the later by appeal to the former. 12 But it is hard to comprehend how any kind of determining or influencing (whether we think of this as causal or otherwise) could operate backwards in time. So it certainly seems legitimate for Kant to worry about how an end or a Zweck realized in a whole system could possibly play any real role in determining or influencing the entire prior process by which the structure first came to be present in that system. Other interpreters worry that Kant here seeks to defend teleological explanation of living beings in a scientifically outdated manner. 13 But, first, the point does not directly concern actual living beings. It is a conceptual point about the very idea of a teleological system (a Zweck). And, second, the point is meant as reason to doubt that we can know living beings to be teleological systems. In this case, we can have no knowledge of any originating concept Kant denies us knowledge of anything like a designer of nature. 14 The argument is similar to the common contemporary claim that a teleological system can only be an artifact now generally offered as a reason why teleology can have no place in biology at all When it comes to Hegel s view, compare his limited praise of Bacon s skepticism about teleology: Bacon at least helps to counteract the sort of superstition which makes two sensuous things which have no relation operate on one another (VGP, 20:88/3:186). So where an end has no real relation to a process, it would be merely superstitious to apply teleology. Garrett makes this general point in considering early modern considerations of teleology more generally: a teleological explanation is one that explains a state of affairs by indicating a likely or presumptive consequence (causal, logical, or conventional) of it that is implicated in the state s originoretiology...noproposed teleological explanation, no matter how appealing or compelling, can be correct unless it cites an actual example of teleology. See his Teleology in Spinoza and Early Modern Rationalism, in New Essays on the Rationalists, ed. by J. Gennaro and C. Huenemann (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p See MacFarland, Kant s Critique of Teleology, p We cannot have knowledge of an (intelligent) world cause that acts according to purposes (KU, 5:389; see also KU, 5:400 and KU, 5:410) Compare especially Descartes response to Gassendi s first objection to the fourth meditation. 15 For example, Cummins argues that any notion of function which purports to explain the presence of the parts of a complex system will apply only to artifacts: it seems to me that the question, why is x there? can be answered by specifying

10 352 james kreines But what is so interesting and so difficult to grasp here is that Kant s further case also differs crucially from such contemporary skepticism about natural teleology. Kant does not argue that teleological judgment implies that a system is an artifact. He carefully aims to preserve as logically consistent the concept of a system that satisfies teleological judgment, but not in virtue of its being an artifact. More specifically, Kant argues as follows: A teleological system requires an originating concept. If the purposiveness is to be inner, then the structure of the whole is due to the parts. Putting these requirements together, the parts would have to determine the structure in a manner guided by a concept. But the parts of the real complex systems of which we have empirical knowledge, such as living beings, are ultimately matter. And matter cannot represent concepts or intend to act in accordance with them: no intention in the strict sense of the term can be attributed to any lifeless matter. 16 So Kant s two requirements have incompatible implications about the origin of a system when applied to a material system: to say that the structure of an exclusively material system is due specifically and entirely to its own parts to say that it has an origin in a mechanical kind of generation is to deny that any end or purpose [Zweck] plays any role in bringing about or originating that structure. 17 This is why Kant says that one kind of explanation excludes the other (KU, 5:412). So, to know that an apparently teleological material system manifests true inner purposiveness would be to know that it was never really a teleological system at all. But none of this shows that a real Naturzweck is logically impossible. For it is not a logical truth that everything must be such that we can comprehend it and know it. More specifically, problems about backwards causation would not apply to anything nonspatiotemporal. So we cannot rule out on logical grounds the possibility that there is a nonspatiotemporal supersensible real ground of nature or a thing in x s function only if x is or is part of an artifact. See his Functional Analysis, p KU, 5:383. This claim about matter has a surprisingly strong status in Kant. For the concept of matter is supposed to be somehow empirical and yet also apriori. See especially M. Friedman, Matter and Motion in the Metaphysical Foundations and the First Critique: The Empirical Concept of Matter and the Categories, in Watkins, Kant and the Sciences, pp See also KU, 5:394, Lectures on Metaphysics, 29:275, andmetaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, 4: More specifically, if we consider a material whole, as far as its form is concerned, as a product of the parts and of their forces and their capacity to combine by themselves... we represent a mechanical kind of generation. But from this there arises no concept of a whole as a Zweck (KU, 5:408). The problem here concerns origins; Kant himself refers to the whole difficulty surrounding the question about the initial generation of a thing that contains purposes in itself (KU, 5:420).

11 The Logic of Life 353 itself (which is not an appearance) as substratum which could unlike matter in space and time somehow self-organize itself from within, in accordance with a concept, without anything like external design. We cannot comprehend how such self-organization might be possible, but we can conceive of a higher form of intellect an intellectual intuition or an intuitive understanding which might. 18 And this higher intellect might be in a position to say two very different things about real living beings: (i) as material systems in space and time, they are in accordance with mechanical laws ; and yet (ii) as somehow determined or conditioned by a supersensible real ground they are in accordance with teleological laws (KU, 5:409). We can have neither comprehension here, nor any reason to assert knowledge of any of this. Still, the concept of something that is a teleological system by nature rather than by design is logically consistent. And the possibility that living beings might be such systems can be conceived without contradiction but cannot be comprehended (KU, 5:371). In this way Kant opens up the space for positive claims about other uses aside from the assertion of knowledge or explanation for the concept of a Naturzweck. First, living beings suggest self-organization in various ways: their parts mutually compensate for one another, they incorporate matter in order to grow, and they generate new living beings by reproduction (KU, 5:371-2). For this and other reasons, Kant will hold that our experience exhibits but nonetheless cannot prove the existence of real Naturzwecke (KU, 20:234). Second, Kant will argue that thinking of living beings in such teleological terms provides us with an indispensable heuristic aid, and that we would have no hope of gaining any scientific understanding of living beings without this aid; Kant even argues that we must for simliar reasons judge nature itself as if it were a Naturzweck More specifically, our merely discursive understanding is dependent on sensibility, and the forms of all our sensible intuition are space and time. The further knowledge would require an understanding which is not discursive but intuitive because it goes from the synthetically universal (of the intuition of a whole as such) to the particular, that is, from the whole to the parts (KU, 5:406) Note that, strictly speaking, what is logically possible is that there might be a system which satisfies the implications of teleological judgment in virtue of its own inner nature. But if we take nature to mean empirical reality in space and time, or material reality, then Kant has not preserved even the logical possibility of an entirely natural end or purpose. 19 With regard to living beings, see Kant s famous denial of the possibility of a Newton for a blade of grass. Note that Kant carefully makes this claim relative to what it is possible for humans to grasp, while leaving open the possibility that living beings really originate in mere mechanism (KU, 5:400). With regard to nature as a whole, see the arguments of the published and unpublished introductions.

12 354 james kreines But what is most important for our purposes is Kant s skeptical conclusion: we cannot comprehend how both requirements could be jointly met, so we cannot have knowledge that living beings are true Naturzwecke, or knowledge that teleology truly explains the structure and development of living beings. In Kant s terms, the concept of a Naturzweck is problematic : when employing it one does not know whether one is judging about something or nothing (KU, 5:397). 20 iii. hegel s aims It is worth briefly clarifying Hegel s aims by contrasting some readily apparent routes by which one might seek to challenge Kant s skeptical conclusion. To begin with, Hegel is under no illusions that one can defend teleology in response to Kant merely by pointing out that it is a distinct and different form of explanation whether different from mechanism, efficient causality, and so forth. Teleology and mechanism cannot be shown to be mutually indifferent and equally valid simply by noting that they differ: if mechanism and purposiveness stand opposed to one another, they cannot for that very reason be taken as indifferent concepts, each of which is correct on its own account, possessing as much validity as they other. Nor does an equal validity of both follow because we have them both (WL, 6:437/735). At issue, then, is not whether we have an interest in explaining living beings in teleological terms, but whether such explanation can be valid. And Hegel recognizes that, at least from the point of view of a philosophical outlook like Kant s, the possibility of real inner purposiveness is an incomprehensible mystery (WL,6:473/763). Hegel wants to show that natural teleology is not problematic, and not incomprehensible not on account of an incompatibility with mechanism, nor for any other reason. But Hegel recognizes the need for an argument that addresses Kant s specific concerns. Some contemporary readers might be attracted to the idea that the notion of function or use in biology carries no implications about origins at all, and so none that could generate any mystery by conflicting with mechanism. But this kind of contemporary approach aims to get rid of teleological notions (and is vulnerable to attacks by contemporary defenses of teleology). To say that something has a function in a sense with no implications about origins for example, to say that it is part of teleonomic system does not imply that its existence and 20 I stress the importance of this conclusion in my more detailed reading of Kant s argument in The Inexplicability of Kant s Naturzweck: Kant on Teleology, Explanation and Biology, Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie, 87 (2005), pp

13 The Logic of Life 355 form is really explained by an end, [Zweck], or telos. Kant, by contrast, defends the importance of a concept that does involve teleology in this sense [Naturzweck], and Hegel aims to go even further by defending the possibility of knowledge that this concept applies to natural beings. 21 One might obviously directly refute Kant s case by arguing that matter itself, rather than being constrained or governed by necessary laws, is actually capable of representing concepts and acting in accordance with them. But we will see that this is not Hegel s strategy. Hegel elsewhere takes issue with some of Kant s claims about matter, but he does not defend such panpsychism. 22 So Hegel s basic goal is to show, without arguing that matter can act intentionally, that we can comprehend the possibility of a Naturzweck. Hegel will try to meet this goal by showing, first, that we can comprehend how a living being might satisfy the implications of teleological judgment without thinking of it as the product of an agent representing a concept. And, second, that we can know this purposiveness to be truly inner without knowing anything about the capacities of the underlying constituent matter. And so the inability of matter to represent concepts and act in accordance will no longer prevent our comprehending the possibility that living beings might really be teleological systems in virtue of their own nature. iv. the analysis of life Hegel argues this in the Science of Logic by means of an analysis of a concept of life. It can be difficult to understand what the point of 21 It is crucial that Kant s strategy is not similar to contemporary attempts to replace teleology, for example, with teleonomy, contra C. Warnke Naturmechanismus und Naturzweck: Bemerkungen zu Kants Organismus-Begriff, Deutsche Zeitschrift fur Philosophie, 40 (1992), pp , and Düsing Naturteleologie und Metaphysik bei Kant und Hegel in Hegel und die Kritik der Urteilskraft, ed. by H.-F. Fulda and R.-P. Horstmann (Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 1990), p In contemporary terms, a truly teleological notion of function would have to be an etiological notion one which carries implications about the factors which determine or cause the presence of the parts of a complex system; the point tends to be agreed by those who defend and those who criticize the scientific status of such teleological notions. Those who defend teleology argue that nonteleological notions of function, without implications about origins, can be ascribed too broadly (on the basis of any capacity of interest to us, rather than just those for the sake of which a part itself is really present) and yet also not broadly enough (they cannot apply to a part which fails to fulfill its function.) 22 For Hegel s complaints about Kant on matter and mechanics, see WL, 5:200ff./178ff, and PN, 262An. See also Beiser s denial that Hegel s defense of teleology is pansychist, Hegel (London: Routledge, 2005), pp

14 356 james kreines the analysis is. It is not an attempt to give an a priori logical deduction of the features real living beings must have. 23 Norisitadirect replacement for or competitor to Kant s analysis of the concept of a Naturzweck. Nor is Hegel seeking merely to reflect on our conceptual scheme in order to analyze our ordinary concept of life or living being. The analysis must be understood as a theoretical tool, or in terms of what Hegel seeks to do with it in terms of how he will use it to argue that we can comprehend the possibility of a system with true inner purposiveness. But the best way to follow Hegel is initially to set aside questions about how the larger argument functions, and attend first just to the content of the analysis, or the content of Hegel s concept of life. Hegel s analysis, and the crux of his philosophical response to Kant on teleology and biology, is found in a section called Life in both versions of the Logic. The analysis also provides the structure for Hegel s discussions of plant and animal biology in the Philosophy of Nature and elsewhere. In all of Hegel s treatments, the analysis has three requirements. The first requirement mirrors Kant s analysis in terms of the relations between part and whole: all the members are reciprocally momentary means as well as momentary ends. 24 Hegel puts the point more directly elsewhere: the organs are the means of life, and these very means, the organs themselves, are also the element in which life realizes and maintains itself... this is self-preservation. 25 But Hegel s concept of life also demands that a complex system itself requires some kind of assimilation from the outside environment in order to grow and preserve itself. In Hegel s terms: in and through this process against an inorganic nature, it maintains itself, develops itself and objectifies itself (EL, 219). Alternatively, it must be engaged in a struggle with the outer world (PN, 365Z). Third, Hegel s concept of life also requires that individuals must be mortal, and must aim for the reproduction (e.g., sexual reproduction) by which a species endures. 26 So anything satisfying Hegel s concept must also pursue self-preservation in an additional sense: it must aim to 23 For example, it is quite improper to try to deduce the contingent products of nature (PN, 250). 24 EL, 216. See Kant s similar formulation at KU, 5:375, to which Hegel refers at EL, 57. In Hegel, see also WL, 2:420/ ; PN, 352; PN, Similarly, the one exists only through the other and for the other, and all the members and component parts of men are simply means for the self-preservation of the individual which is here the end (VPR, 17:503/330). 26 On mortality specifically, see EL, 221, WL, 6:486/774, PN, 375f., VL, 213, and VPN, 184.

15 The Logic of Life 357 reproduce itself it produces itself as another individual of the same species (PP, 4:32/142). And survival of the species requires that selfpreservation in this latter sense dominates: the end of the animal in itself as an individual is its own self-preservation; but its true end in itself is the species. 27 In Hegel s terms, the third requirement demands the process of the Gattung [genus, kind or species] or the Gattungsprozess. 28 (Hegel s term Gattung usually translated as genus can seem to suggest the idea that there is a perfect hierarchical classification system defined by clear necessary and sufficient conditions for different categories; Hegel s analysis does not require that claim, and he elsewhere denies it. 29 The requirements of the analysis alone fix the meaning of Gattung here: it refers to a general kind within which individuals reproduce, generating more individuals of the same kind. I will generally use species to refer to this idea.) 30 Hegel s three requirements are interrelated in several ways. For example, the first governs internal structure. But combining this with the second and third requirements will generate additional demands on structure: if the parts are to be mutually beneficial, then they will have to be organized in a manner that realizes the capacities, or makes possible the activities, required for assimilation and reproduction. 31 It makes sense, then, for Hegel to say elsewhere that life requires a system of activities which is actualized into a system of organs through which those activities proceed so that in this way the living thing is articulated purposefully; all its members serve only as means to the one end of self-preservation (VPA, 13:193/1:145). Finally, note that the structure of Hegel s analysis of the concept of life differs greatly from Kant s analysis of the concept of a Naturzweck. Kant s analysis itself consists entirely of two requirements governing 27 VGP, 20:87; VGP, 3:185. Also on the way in which the end of preservation of the species trumps preservation of the individual, see EL, 221 and WL, 6:484/ For example, WL, 6:486/774; EL 221; PN 367ff; VL, Biology does not allow an independent, rational system of organization (PN, 370) Life in its differentiating process does not actually posses any rational ordering and arrangement of parts, and is not an immanently grounded system of shapes (PhG, , ). See also VN, 199. And naturally there are also animals which are intermediate forms (PN, 368Z). 30 Species is the best translation, for example, where Hegel refers to the propagation of the species or die Fortpflanzung der Gattung (PN, 365Z/9:492). I will continue to also use kind and Gattung because it is important that Hegel uses the same term for natural kinds, as in chemical kinds: for example, the universal essence, the real kind (Gattung) of the particular object (WL, 6:430/ 728). 31 On these capacities, see EL, 218Z; PN, 344Z, ).

16 358 james kreines specifically part-whole relations within a complex system. 32 He recognizes assimilation and reproduction. But he argues that the general philosophical problem concerning natural teleology is independent of these specific ways in which our experience of real living beings happens to suggest the self-organization of a Naturzweck. Hegel s analysis of life is more complex: It also demands a specific relationship between the whole and the outside environment and between the whole and other wholes of the same general kind or species. In itself, simplicity would be a philosophical advantage unless Hegel can show that these additional features are relevant to, and in fact resolve, Kant s general philosophical problem concerning natural teleology. v. comprehending the origin of a naturzweck This being Hegel, it is too much to hope for an immediately and easily transparent statement of how the argument of the Life section in the Logic is supposed to work. But I think we can see the answer clearly enough by considering how Hegel s analysis specifically relates to Kant s argument, and then working our way toward progressively better understandings of Hegel s initially opaque terminology. To begin with, it is the origin or genesis of a Naturzweck we cannot comprehend how any origin could satisfy both of Kant s requirements. And Hegel s analysis of life does conspicuously address the topic of origins: the analysis requires reproduction, or the generation of individuality (WL, 6:486/774). The first question is, then, why should it be possible for a complex system to satisfy the implications of teleological judgment in virtue of this kind of origin, without requiring an originating representation of the whole? To begin with, Hegel s analysis adds a distinction between something particular and something general or universal between individuals and their general species or kind. Distinct individuals parent(s) and offspring are (though in many ways different) identical in one respect: they are the same in species or kind (Gattung). So there is a sense in which, in reproducing, an individual produces not something else but rather produces itself as another individual of the same species (PP, 4:32/142). Furthermore, the general structure of the offspring will generally be identical and determined by the parent(s); for example, through the male and female natures, there emerges a determination of the entire structure (PN, 365Z, 9:459/377). And now we can see 32 All determinations of the concept of natural purpose that Kant introduces have to do with the relation of part and whole. See McLaughlin, Kant s Critique of Teleology, p. 50.

17 The Logic of Life 359 how the general structure of a new organism precedes its development not in the form or an intelligent designer s representation, but in the structure shared by the parent(s) and previous generations of the same species. How does this help with teleology? Consider the question in terms of parts and whole, following Kant s analysis. Take as an example a tiger I will call him Hobbes and his claws. On Kant s account, the problem is this: how can the beneficial consequences of Hobbes s claws, once present in Hobbes, have any influence over the process, entirely prior in time, by which these very claws first came to be present in Hobbes? That is indeed problematic. But Hegel s analysis reconceives the problem. If different individuals are the same in structure, then they will have the same general kinds of parts or features or members, in the Hegelian terms we will come to below. The general kinds of parts of living beings for example, claws, heart, lungs have beneficial consequences for wholes of the species generally. For example, the teeth, claws, and the like... it is through these that the animal establishes and preserves itself as an independent existence (PN, 368A). Kant s problem will now look very different; the question is now: how can the beneficial consequences of a general kind of part possibly have influence over how a new instance of that same general kind of part came to exist within this new individual? This is no longer so problematic. Hobbes s claws will be a benefit to him. And, crucially, this is no coincidence: this general feature or member contributes to assimilation and so to the survival of tigers generally; and this general benefit has already helped to make possible the survival of previous tigers, and so also the production of Hobbes and his claws. More generally, a new individual and its new parts are possible only insofar as parts of that general kind are beneficial in relation to wholes of the same general kind. So the new individual meets Kant s demand that, in a teleological system the parts (as far as their existence and their form are concerned) are possible only through their relation to the whole (KU, 5:373). And we can comprehend in this way how a complex system might be throughout all its parts, means and the instrument of the end (WL, 6:476/766) Or, more specifically, might be such that all its members serve only as means to the one end of self-preservation (VPA, 13:193/1:145). Some may feel that true teleology is somehow eliminated or reduced in an account of this sort. To be sure, intelligent design (as with artifact) is missing; but it is clearly Hegel s goal to show that Kant s analysis of teleology can be met without this, or without external purposiveness. More generally, Hegel specifically seeks to do without the requirement for an originating representation (whether this is supposed to be on

18 360 james kreines the part of a separate designer, or whether matter itself is imagined to represent a goal and organize itself in accordance). 33 And this is no defense of teleological explanation of the historical development of a species. But the Logic analysis of life makes no special requirements about how or even whether a biological species originates or develops in time at all. It does not rule in or out any stand on this topic. By not mentioning any of this, it treats the topic as an empirical matter not relevant to the resolution of the general philosophical problem concerning how teleology might explain the structure and development of a complex system such as an individual organism. 34 (Of course, Hegel elsewhere insists that spirit (Geist), or sometimes self-consciousness, does develop progressively over time; but this is a distinct topic.) One might certainly worry that the account sketched so far cannot render comprehensible genuine self-organization or true inner purposiveness. For Hegel s account does nothing to explain how we could get from mere matter alone to an organized living being, capable of assimilation and reproduction. But this is not itself the precise problem at issue between Kant and Hegel. To begin with, Kant does not hold that we cannot have knowledge of the existence of anything which we cannot explain in terms of matter and its laws; Kant allows knowledge of the existence of living beings which assimilate and reproduce, even though he thinks we lack such explanatory insight here. 35 Kant s problem is focused more directly on the concept of a Naturzweck. For the inner purposiveness of a Naturzweck, the structure of the whole would have to be due to the parts. This is why Kant sees questions about matter as relevant: to know that the structure of a material system is due to its parts we would have to know how its structure can and does emerge entirely from the law-governed behavior of the underlying matter. But to know this would be to know that this system does not have the kind of origin required for a teleological system at all. One way to challenge Kant s conclusion here would be to offer an explanation of how matter alone might generate a genuinely 33 And this leads Hegel to limited praise of the most famous critics of natural teleology: with the Stoics, all external, teleological superstition is taken under their protection and justified, and Epicurianism (though wrong about natural teleology) at least proceeds towards the liberation of men from this superstition (VGP, 19:267/2:248). Hegel also compares the way in which Bacon s criticisms of natural teleology at least help to counter modern superstitions (VGP, 20:87/3:185). 34 Compare: Kant s analysis treats the phenomena of assimilation and reproduction as real but irrelevant to the general problem concerning the concept of a Naturzweck. This is obviously not to say that Kant denies the reality of those phenomena. 35 See, for example, the famous blade of grass claim is at KU, 5:400.